One hour later...
Slash!
"GYAAAAAAAGH!!"
The last Withered Peach Gaki went down, letting out a death scream as it died.
"That's the last of them..."
"Finally..."
Having confirmed the enemy wiped out, Yasutaka took a look around.
He'd recovered a little strength, and he scanned the area, bracing for one more push, but the toll on their side had been far from small.
"Gyōken! Gyōken, nooo!!"
A man wailed beside a fallen constable.
The Kabukimono, too, had suffered no small losses.
"Dōgan! Open your eyes, Dōgan!"
"...*hic*... Dōgan..."
A Kabukimono wept over his fallen comrade.
Elsewhere, others silently gathered bones, no doubt the comrades of those the Jaō-kuzu had claimed.
Yasutaka himself had known a few of the dead.
They hadn't been close, but he closed his eyes and offered a moment of silence all the same.
"Chiho. You alright?"
"I'm fine... somehow. Once the seal breaks I'll heal myself."
Chiho's injuries weren't life-threatening, but they'd left her unable to move.
"Bodies everywhere..."
"Yeah..."
Yasutaka and Mōha both frowned at just how costly this manhunt had turned out to be.
Looking away without thinking, Yasutaka's eyes landed on a withered pond.
(This is where the Jaō-kuzu was hiding, wasn't it...)
As he thought about it, something nagged at him.
(But hadn't a few of the Arson and Theft squad already scouted the estate beforehand? Would a monster as powerful as the Jaō-kuzu really have let them pass without attacking?)
The fact that a monster of the Jaō-kuzu's stature had spent all that time pretending to be a pond bothered him.
Even a great monster like that wasn't exactly known for its cunning.
What's more...
(It didn't come after me the moment I provoked it... This was my first time fighting the thing, but was it really smart enough for that? And then it suddenly attacked after a while had passed...)
Strangely, it had started out clever, picking off only the targets convenient to itself, but partway through it seemed to switch to acting on pure instinct.
Almost as if...
(...as if someone had been controlling it.)
Yasutaka tilted his head at the inexplicable behavior.
Then...
Glint...
Something in the pond caught the light and glinted.
(What's that?)
Yasutaka climbed down into the pond to check what had fallen there.
(An eggplant netsuke?)
A netsuke, to put it simply, was something like a decorative fob.
Originally, it was the kind of accessory people attached to a purse or the like...
(...No way!)
Just as a bad feeling crept over Yasutaka...
"Boss! Trouble!"
"What is it?"
The old spy came running to Onihei, who'd been directing the operation.
"There's a badly hurt woman and an old lady outside!"
"What?!"
"Huh?"
Hearing that, Yasutaka felt a fresh wave of dread.
"One's a young Spider Woman in a shrine maiden's robes, and the other's an old Noh Master!"
"Wait—!"
Yasutaka rushed forward, cutting in front of Onihei.
"Sorry! Can I go? They might be people I know!"
"...Understood! Go on, then!"
"Thank you!"
Yasutaka bolted outside.
"This way!"
He followed the old spy's lead, though he didn't have to run far.
Just around the first corner, there they were.
"Tacchan..."
"Nnngh..."
Mani-hime knelt beside the badly wounded Granny Moon, working a healing prayer over her.
"Are you alright?!"
"I'm alright somehow... but Granny Moon protected me..."
"Guh..."
Granny Moon coughed up a small spurt of blood.
Her wounds were severe, but Mani-hime had begun her healing prayers quickly as a shrine maiden, so she would likely pull through.
Tears fell in fat drops from Mani-hime's eyes.
"I'm sorry... Tacchan... I..."
"No, it's fine..."
Yasutaka cut her off, his face turning grave.
"I already know who did this..."
Yasutaka already knew who was responsible.
Mani-hime pulled something from inside her robes and held it out to him.
"Then, this is..."
"Yeah. I'll take it."
He took the thing she offered.
Turning it over in his hand, he saw...
"...........Just as I thought."
It was a hairpin.
A plain, unremarkable hairpin with no ornamentation to speak of, but Yasutaka recognized it at once.
Just then, Onihei came clattering up with his men in tow.
"You alright?"
"Yes... but Heizō, there's something I need to tell you..."
"Hmm... Does it have to be now?"
"Yes. Because..."
He hesitated a moment, then said it plainly.
"I've figured out who's behind that monster from earlier."
"...........What?"
Onihei's brow furrowed at the words.